Saturday, January 6, 2018

ArchEnemy by Frank Beddor (Review)


Date Finished: January 1, 2018
Page Count: 370
Genre: Fantasy


            Well, this book sucked. The series started out on a high note and slowly began to fall ever so slowly into a boring collection of words that I no longer care about (except for the fact that Alyss x Dodge happened at the end which it kinda ironic if you’ve been keeping up with my reviews). What was so bad about the book you ask? It failed to keep my attention in the long run and thanks to the disaster of the second book, I had little to care about in the final installment of the series. The book was so bad I actually didn’t read it completely. Yes, I admit it, aside from the first thirty pages or so, I skimmed through everything other than a few eye catching conversations and significant events that would help me keep up with the story. I’d feel bad for doing such a thing if I actually cared about the book but I didn’t. There’s not much I have or want to say about this book, but I can tell you what made the book on its own too boring for me to enjoy.
            ArchEnemy picked up where Seeing Redd left off, which was showing how everyone in Wonderland trying to cope with the loss of imagination. I personally hated this about the second book (everyone losing their imagination) but if I were just to look at the loss of imagination in ArchEnemy, I still think it lasted for far too long in my opinion. The imagination-based battles were what I loved most about the series so removing it for the beginning resulted in two bad choices. One effect was Alyss becoming a more a dull character than she was in Seeing Redd. Sure, she got to understand those without imagination (like her love interest) more and experience what it’s like to not be able to rely on her powers, but it also caused the second poor choice of the battles only being technology based!! That’s taking away one of the crucial fun parts of the story!
            My interest in the characters also decreased as they simply went about doing war activities and preparing for battles for a lot of the first part that I fully read. Normally I wouldn’t get upset about this, but I feel like there are too much meaningless actions and not enough decent character development, or enough new and interesting info being given to the readers. I was already loosing interest in the characters in the previous book, try not to make me care even less in the final book.
            To be honest, I feel as though my loss of interest in this book can be traced to Seeing Redd at its roots, and then a failure to keep things interesting and fresh yet still remain true to the series roots. Guess it’s no surprise this review is so short then and the fact that I don’t recommend anyone to read this book due to the lack of new ideas and interesting plot/characters. Just read the first book and none of the sequels in the series okay? Spinoff books are okay though as I read Hatter Madigan Ghost in the H.A.T.B.O.X which was a nice fresh take on the character of Hatter as a young boy and didn’t seem to be a poorly retold version of Alice in Wonderland. Not going to review the book here though because I only have so much break time and so much time to do nothing. All you need to know is that it’s really good and far better than ArchEnemy in my opinion.

No comments:

Post a Comment